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L i k e U s ! ! !

IT’S PARTY TIME WITH DESKTOP KARAOKE

A friend of mine was recently tasked to provide the entertainment for a conference, and on a tiny budget.  He first thought of karaoke.

Karaoke bars are big business, and people love to ham it up in front of the screen. You don't have to come up with lame or insulting wisecracks to get people into a fun mood, and there are lots of party games you can come up with using the music and lyrics.

That's what my friend wanted for his party:  people singing and dancing, having a grand old time - with him as the star for having come up with it.

The only problem - the budget! Until now, my friend would've had to go out and hire someone with an elaborate and expensive karaoke set-up to come out and run it - putting the idea of a karaoke party out of reach for him, as it is for so many others.

Until now, that is. 

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THE CERTAINTY OF CORRUPTION

Transparency International recently released their Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2005. It may surprise some that China is seriously corrupt with a score of 3.2. It scored worse than Egypt, Laos and Syria.

This brings to light a real dilemma. China is one of the most seriously corrupt countries in the world. To get our trade deficit under control we must quickly sell more American products to China. However, American exporters must deal each day with corrupt government agencies and practices.

At the same time, American businessmen must contend with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This makes it against U.S. law to give any sort of bribe, kick back or “facilitation fee” to a government official of a foreign country to obtain business or gain some advantage.

With the extent of corruption in China, it is impossible to avoid this reality to win contracts or to run China-based subsidiaries that sell U.S. made products. To make significant progress for American exports to China, it will be impossible to stay within U.S. law. Meanwhile, more American jobs are lost each day while our manufacturing industry is being hollowed out by the unfair and corrupt practices of one of our most important trading partners


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THE “HYUNDAIZATION” OF THE GLOBAL DEFENSE MARKET


Ten or fifteen years ago, when you looked at the cars on the road, how many Hyundais did you see? How many Hyundais do you see now, driven by buyers who wanted a "good enough" car for a reasonable price? 

Back in my April 4/14 Half-Full Report, I referred to a nascent "Hyundaization" (hun-dye-zay-shun) trend in the global defense market.  Even now, few people have noticed this.

Hyundaization has been masked by spending from high-end customers who only want top-end gear, and by global fire sales of used Western equipment. As an example of those fire sales, many of the Jordanian F-16s bombing ISIS right now recently belonged to the Dutch and Belgian air forces.

After a decade of those sales, however, there isn't much second-hand equipment left to sell. That's opening the door to new buys from new sources. A combination of technology trends, industrial policies, and a multi-polar global shift will give this trend staying power.

This is a sea change on multiple levels.  "Hyundaization" is going to have profound diplomatic, military, and industrial consequences.  Let's talk about them.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 10/31/14


Boo!

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Yes, President Zero has become a fright mask scaring America.  It's all trick and no treat for Democrats.  Welcome to the Happy Halloween HFR!

Goblins from Electoral Hell are haunting the Dems this week.  Could it really be that next week Hell actually freezes over?

There are a whole host of reasons why it could.  Let's enjoy them.  Then we'll have to list the caveats.

*Amazingly, there have been no October Surprises haunting Pubs.  There have been an avalanche of them on the Dems - the latest being Louisiana's Scary Mary Landrieu yesterday (10/30) saying she and Zero are unpopular because the entire South is racist and sexist.

She just didn't throw her own state and herself under the bus, but every Dem in the South who will now be asked if they agree.  Wow.  Normally, a bitter candidate denounces voters after losing - but before?  May not be long until the white coats take her away to the Funny Farm.

*A headline to relish from Wednesday (10/29):

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THE ASPIRATIONAL SOCIETY VS. THE ENVIOUS SOCIETY


Hong Kong.  Why is Hong Kong succeeding while New York City is receding?

They are both world-class cities with about the same per-capita income and great natural harbors. New York is about 15 percent larger in population, while Hong Kong is about one-third larger in area (but unbuildable because of the steep terrain). Both have large immigrant populations who are seeking better lives.

Last week, I explained how much of Hong Kong's success was a result of it having the freest economy in the world, with low levels of government spending, low tax rates, a minimum of government regulation and the rule of law. There is more.

Hong Kong, like Singapore, South Korea, Chile and Switzerland are aspirational societies, rather than societies consumed with envy, like France. Work, saving and investment are not punished in aspirational societies, and there tend to be less social conflict and a higher level of civility.

(It was U.S. venture capitalist Terry Anker who first used the term "aspirational society" to describe Hong Kong during our meetings in this glorious city this past week. It is a more inclusive term than "opportunity society" that Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp frequently used to describe their vision for the United States.)

The United States used to be an aspirational society, but has increasingly become an envious society.

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OBAMA TO THE RESCUE OF HAMAS


Operation Protective Edge is now two weeks old. Since the ground offensive began last Thursday (7/17) night, we have begun to get a better picture of just how dangerous Hamas has become in the nine years since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. And what we have learned is that the time has come to take care of this problem. It cannot be allowed to fester or grow anymore.

As an example, Hamas tunnels have been found with shafts rigged with bombs located directly under Israeli kindergartens.

As a member of the Moslem Brotherhood, Hamas is not a stand-alone terror group. It is part of a much larger web of Islamic jihadist terror groups including al-Qaida and its affiliates as well as the Shi'ite Hezbollah. Like Hamas, all of these threaten several major Sunni Arab states.

Due to their recognition of the threat Hamas and its allies pose to the survivability of their regimes, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken the unprecedented step of supporting Israel's efforts to defeat Hamas.

Israel is making good progress.  But it hasn't completed its missions. It needs several more days of hard fighting.  Recognizing this, Israel's newfound Moslem allies - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE - have not been pushing for a cease-fire.

In contrast, the Obama administration is coming to Hamas' rescue by insisting on concluding a cease-fire immediately.

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THE 1974 OBVERSE


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Are you ready?  Are you ready?  History is about to change direction.  That a self-declared "rebel on the right" street artist named Sabo created this poster, then plastered it on streets in Beverly Hills over last weekend, is one indication.  Pictures of it went instantly viral on the Web, then went viral on stilts when Cruz tweeted his response:

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Even the HuffPo was in awe of Cruz's perfect sense of humor, calling it "incredible."  Cruz then sent a signed poster back to Sabo, inscribing, "The fight for liberty never ends."  Say goodbye to a Republican Party being run by Rino squishes.  Here's the Pub Party of the future.  Cruz is cool.
 
Welcome to 1974 in obverse.

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WHAT TO READ


TTPers are readers and thinkers.  A number of you have asked what I've been reading lately.  I thought that now would be a good time, as we start a new year, to answer.  It's also a chance to take a break from the general insanity of current events.

What follows is not advice for you.  Your interests are specifically yours, and none of these books may ring your bell.  But they all rang mine to various degrees.  There are too many to provide reviews.  The link for each is to the listing on Amazon containing a multitude of comments and quotes.

The list here is the books I read in 2012.  Most of them, I bought the Kindle version and read them on my iPad.  I really recommend this.

Yet I also re-read favorites ensconced in my library - such as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (the link is to the Kindle edition, at $4.27). Also on Kindle now is Ludwig von Mises' compact classic, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality.  This should be required reading for every conservative.

About once a decade I complete Will Durant's entire The Story of Civilization.  This takes some time, as it's eleven volumes, 10,000 pages, and four million words.  I've had the set in my library for 40 years, and last year I finished it once again.  Amazon has The Story of Civilization (11 Volume Set) in hardcover for $439 - but the Kindle edition is only $12.74 per volume.

OK, so here we go - one year's reading.  I think you'll find at least some things here that will intrigue you.  And now, please tell us what your favorite books are on the Forum!

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TRAINING FOR WHAT YOU WANT


Last week I asked you to define three things: Something you want to stop doing; something you want to start doing - or do more of; and a longer term goal that you want to reach.

Today I want to give you the beginning of a training regimen that will strengthen your ability to achieve those three things (also largely courtesy of Kelly McGonigal from her book, The Willpower Instinct).

Whenever you strengthen your capacity for willpower in a specific way, you strengthen your capacity for willpower in general. Since there are three different applications of willpower, reflected in three different parts of your brain, let's practice strengthening each of these.

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SOUTHWEST WINTER RENDEZVOUS!


Any denizen of the TTP User Forum will instantly recognize "Cephren," the all-time champion poster.  And any participant in previous TTP Rendezvous, such as last month's in Boston, knows Cephren is Chris Baldi, a hail-and-hearty fellow you'd have to try very hard to dislike.

At Boston, everyone agreed that the Winter Rendezvous had to be someplace where there isn't winter, someplace warm, and that it should be out West.  Last February it was in the East, in Sarasota.

We had a wonderful time in Sarasota, and Chris promises us all an equally good time where he lives.  Thus we hereby announce the Southwest Winter Rendezvous in Phoenix, Arizona, January 23-25.

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HILLARY AND THE BEATLES


In 1966, The Beatles wrote Hillary Clinton's theme song.

The quote that most perfectly encapsulates her philosophy of government was delivered on June 28, 2004 at a San Francisco fundraiser for fellow senator Barbara Boxer in which she announced to her wealthy listeners and all Americans in general:

We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

The underlying philosophy of the Democrat Party as personified by the PIAPS is fascist thuggery posing as humanitarian compassion.  Witness her project of giving $5000 to every child born in the US (legal or illegal).  "Giving" is not the right term of course - it would only be if it were her money.

What she is in fact proposing is to steal at the point of a gun money from people who have earned it and hand it over to those who have not.  That's called theft, not "giving" or "being compassionate."

Thus Hillary's Theme Song, the first track on the 1966 Revolver album.  The Beatles had Hillary and her fascist ilk in mind when they wrote it. 

It's called The Taxman:

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TORAH VS. TYRANNY


It's hard to think of a more dreadful action against the Almighty than the orgy around the golden calf, while Moses received the tablets of the Law. No wonder, then, that Moses ordered the Levites to draw their swords and kill all the idolators.

Yet, as our rabbi reminded us last Sabbath, many Jewish scholars believe the Israelites en route to the Holy Land performed an even greater sin when they believed ten of their twelve spies who said that the inhabitants of the land of Canaan were too strong, and that any effort to conquer them was doomed to failure. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, said that victory was possible.

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THE AMAZING MUSICAL MONKEY

1,000 files. 4.5 gigabytes. All in a month.

Numbers like these almost put me in the elite of digital music aficionados. I spent much of a month using one of my favorite programs, Stationripper, reviewed by me last July.

In its free version, Stationripper lets you record 2 Shoutcast MP3 streams at a time. Stationripper is useful because it saves songs downloaded as individual files with their proper names.

It's a great way to build a large music collection in just a few days - and it's all completely legal, as I mentioned recently.  Getting music is no longer a problem, and playing it is easy, too.

The only problem is trying to get a handle on my collection. Until recently, all my files were in a few folders; it would have been nice to set up playlists by artists, genres, even albums.

But who has time to figure out what songs go with which albums? And who has time to set up playlists according to mood mixes, artists, music types or whatever?

The Monkey has the time - as well as the ability!

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THE IDIOCY OF ABASEMENT TO THE UMBRAGE POLICE


The celebrity actor Benedict Cumberbatch has said he is "a complete fool," an "idiot," "thoughtless" and that he is "devastated" for having inadvertently used the term "colored" to describe black people on a US talk show.

It's depressing enough that he felt the obligation to apologize. But what's worse is that he felt the need to do with such groveling self-abasement.

Yes, we all know why he did it. It's Oscar nomination season coming up, Cumberbatch is a possible contender for his portrayal of fashionably autistic, gay code-breaker Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, and Hollywood is notoriously PC and squeamish about issues to do with race.

But if anyone who owes anyone an apology, here, it's not poor put-upon Cumberbatch but the noisome professional offense-takers who by seeking to make political mileage out of such achingly trivial issues are creating a climate of linguistic fear in which good people suffer.

This, though, unfortunately, is how the liberal-left rolls.  For as my friend Alex Wickham tells me, "Liberals are the new Puritans who want to control your life."  We need an End to the New Puritanism movement.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 10/24/14


Ten days to go until Election Eve.  Is it time to play this?

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Yes, there's still time for things to go sideways, and many races are close enough for the Dems to cheat their way to victory - especially in Colorado.  But every time I start to worry about Dem voter fraud this year, I think of Joe Biden.

Remember his incredibly obnoxious performance debating Paul Ryan in 2012?  It was the single VP candidate debate on national television, with Ryan trying to have a serious discussion about serious issues, and all Biden did was smirk and eye-roll ridicule everything Ryan said. 

A voice of alarm went off in my brain - which I unfortunately ignored as I couldn't believe it at the time - that Biden was signaling the fix was in.  He couldn't take the debate or the entire campaign or voter sentiment seriously because he knew Dem Party operatives had made sure the election would follow Stalin's dictum:  "It doesn't matter who votes - what matters is who counts the votes."

You won't find SloJo being a smart-ass now - or any other Dem and Enemedia pundit.  They are all in a state of gloom and panic living in Sour Grapes City. 

That alone tells you the Pub margin of victory in many races is too big for Dem cheating to overcome.  So maybe we really can sing along with the 1967 Beatles, It's Getting Better All The Time.  Let's look at some specifics.

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